


Nil quae feci

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Zenda Novels - Anthony Hope
Genre: Community: 52fandoms, F/M, Gen, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 19:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Rudolf Rassendyll applied his family motto to his own affairs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nil quae feci

**I**

'But Rudolf, what do you intend to _do_?'

I refolded my newspaper with considerable deliberation, and if my sister-in-law chose to take that as a personal affront, what fault was that of mine? For if truth were known it was far more sinister: an effort to ensure that she did not see the article I had been perusing, a piece on the political situation in Ruritania.

'Why,' I said, as lightly as I might, 'what I have done all along. Nothing.'

  
 **II**

In the first year, the first two years, the Count Fritz von Tarlenheim could still tell himself, against all his better judgement, that he believed that Rudolf V was the rightful and the best possible king for Ruritania. And once, when he met Rudolf Rassendyll at a little town in Germany, and the evening had grown late and the wine had flowed long, he said as much, and thanked him heartily for the services he had rendered the country that was barely his by inheritance.

Rassendyll merely smiled and said, 'Why, it was nothing.'

  
 **III**

Something was wrong. He knew from the moment the clock chimed and Fritz was not there, and he seethed with impatience. Leaving the room was unthinkable. Failing to act was unbearable.

And when Fritz arrived, bloody and ashamed, and told his pitiful story, Rudolf's heart leapt even as the horror mounted in his mind, and his whole being thrilled at the prospect of action.

For it pained him most of all to do nothing.

  
 **IV**

It was a long while that he lay dying, and still he never confessed what he had chosen, and perhaps that was as well; for, whatever the answer, it would have broken our hearts to know it. But one thing he did say, a little time before the end:

'At any rate, I have done nothing of which I could be ashamed.'

  
 **V**

The Queen wore the ring until the day she died, and nobody ever asked her about it.

Only once did she herself allude to it; once, when her glance fell upon a portrait that might have been of her late husband, and yet was not. Then she smiled sadly, and she turned the ring upon her finger, and said, 'It is surprising, is it not, Helga, what great things can come of nothing?'


End file.
